Archive for the ‘Feature’ Category
Posted on December 4, 2008 - by Frank
Auckland City - The Homeless ‘Problem’
According to the New Zealand Herald today, Citizen’s and Ratepayers councillors on Auckland City Council formed the majority in a vote recently to move forward in developing a bylaw to force the homeless away from inner city streets. The development of the bylaw comes with a $50,000 spend, a contrast to the hault on spending in many other areas that has been put forward by the Mayor and his council. Interestingly Mayor John Banks has stated that he does not support the development of the bylaw and would rather see a strengthening of unity amongst the groups that deal with the social issues associated with homelessness. It is rare for the Mayor to disagree with C & R.
Posted on December 1, 2008 - by Frank
World AIDS Day 2008
Living in Aotearoa/New Zealand it’s easy to go about life without giving HIV/AIDS much of a thought if it doesn’t directly affect our lives. Whilst it exists in Aotearoa/New Zealand, probably to an extent that may surprise some people, and whilst the rate of infection with other STI’s in the public shows signs that HIV could spread rapidly in our country if it were to enter certain sectors of society unnoticed, it is generally not something that affects the day to day lives of the average citizen here.
Posted on November 28, 2008 - by Frank
TEAR Fund Christmas Focus: Trafficking in Nepal
The following was submitted by Andrew Dallaston - TEAR Fund Education Officer.
A lot of kiwis have been trekking in Nepal. One notable kiwi trekked all the way to the top of Everest and then spent a fair chunk of his remarkable life helping the Sherpa people build schools and hospitals. But apart from Sir Edmund and the Himalayas most of us don’t know much about Nepal – that little country about the size of the South Island, sitting on top of India.
Posted on November 23, 2008 - by Frank
Trust Banks - A Tool for Responsible Business
A friend asked me a little while ago if I had any ideas relating to what they could do to use the business they are establishing, building and promoting to make it a more ethical entity and to make it something that is making a positive difference in the world. It is an exciting question to hear as I believe responsible business and business where the profit margin is not the be all and end all of what a business achieves needs to be the way of the present and future in terms of how businesses operate if we are to work towards establishing a sustainable world where people are recognized as the center of everything that is done. If a business can prove to be responsible in the way it approaches the world, it should be able to move forward and we should explore avenues to promote this.
Posted on November 21, 2008 - by Frank
Social Welfare and Corporate Crims
Following on from the general election just held here in Aotearoa/New Zealand I have been reflecting on many of the discussions I had the pleasure of being involved in during the lead up to it and directly following it. In many of those conversations there was one topic that consistently made itself known - social welfare.
Social welfare is often a political issue in Aotearoa/New Zealand, but I got the impression that it was much more of a feature in people’s minds this time round. I don’t know if my impression is correct.
Posted on November 19, 2008 - by Frank
Interview: Paul Childers - PhotogenX (Audio)
Earlier this week I had the privilege of interviewing Paul Childers. Paul, along with Susanne (his wife), runs PhotogenX. The purpose of PhotogenX is to advocate for those who do not have a voice by using photography as a means to tell stories.
Susanne is mostly responsible for the photography. The imagery is absolutely stunning. If you want to see some of it, just check out their website www.photogenx.net
Together Paul and Susanne have traveled through about 50 countries and in his lifetime, Paul has visited 70-80 countries. His trips have included Afghanistan during the war that followed the September 11 attacks in the U.S in 2001.
During our interview we touched on issues such as infanticide in the Amazon and changing laws in Brazil. WE also talked about how Paul’s faith impacts what he does and maintaining a sense of hope when faced with such colossal issues.
Have a listen.
Note: An earlier problem with the audio has been rectified so you should have no issue playing it now.
Posted on November 17, 2008 - by Frank
Stuff iPods! Give a Goat!
Christmas is looming up fast and with it, the usual pressures of gift giving amongst people who already have everything they need. So once again you’re going to be wracking your brains about what to give your loved ones and chances are, you’re going to spend more than you can afford. Welcome to the ghost of Christmas consumerism.
As the world faces a financial crunch, many of us are probably hoping for a different way to approach Christmas - a way to escape the annual drudge of searching out the perfect gifts, purchasing them and giving them with the hope that the receiver will be genuinely happy with the thing we’ve given them. Sure, I can understand why many people enjoy this - if that’s you then this article may not be for you, but if you’re not that person and if you really want to escape what could possibly feel like a Christmas trap for you then let’s take a look at a possible alternative.
Posted on November 7, 2008 - by Frank
Smackdown ‘08
The following was sent to the Humanitarian Chronicle by someone who shall use the pseudonym, Jon Shannow.
When they vote tomorrow, far too many Christians in Aotearoa/NZ will allow their choices to be influenced by a single issue – the so called “anti smacking” bill. Voting on the basis of a single issue is always blinkered and unbalanced but voting on one issue that isn’t fully understood is downright stupid. There has been too much misinformation, rhetoric and emotion around this bill so let’s look at the facts.
Posted on November 6, 2008 - by Frank
A Foreign Policy of Respect
I am not American, but yesterday I watched the U.S election with interest, with my chief concern as someone from outside of the U.S, being foreign policy. There were two very different approaches to international relations on offer.
American foreign policy interests me because it influences the world greatly. Over the last 8 years, under the Bush administration, the view of the U.S in the eyes of the world has greatly diminished. I don’t think that can purely be blamed on the Bush administration as I think a number of things that had been fermenting for some time simply boiled over under his watch and there are a number of other “hot patatoes” in the world ready to boil over as well. His administration’s approach to foreign policy exacerbated the problems. The Osama Bin Laden problem did not simply materialize on September 11, 2001, it was the result of a problem that began when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and the U.S decided to fight back by funding, supporting and training rebel groups in the area that could repel the Russians due to the strategic nature of Afghanistan. Bin Laden was one of the leaders amongst those groups and the training camps used by those groups evolved into Al-Qaeda. Likewise, the Iraq problem was in place well before President George W. Bush entered the world stage.
Posted on October 25, 2008 - by Frank
Palestinians and Christian Reductionism
Warning - this post may offend many. The situation I am about to address is a firebrand that causes high emotion for many people. I am not seeking to make any friends with this, I have just decided that for the first time, I wish to air publicly, some of my privately held opinions on this matter and I believe it entirely relates to the point of this site. I cannot, in good conscience, remain silent on this issue only to protect my own reputation. If it ruins this site and my reputation, I will walk away with a clear mind and heart. Peace.
Let’s be clear from the outset that when I use the term “reductionism”, I am not using it in the sense of scientific inquiry where reductionism refers to investigating something by reducing it to the study of the components within it. I am instead referring to the reduction of complex situations and arguments to oversimplifications that simply heighten and negatively feed already volatile situations.
Allow me to also be clear that when I approach the situation, my Christian faith and position as a Christian Minister is one large part of me that informs my approach to the problem – I am especially interested in the many varied factors of religion playing out.
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Posted on October 16, 2008 - by Frank
Blog Action Day - How I Missed It + Poverty Sexed Up
There is an irony in the image I’ve used for this article. Here I was thinking I was a serious blogger… clearly not. When they go away on holiday, people operating serious internet sites cue up material and date stamp it to publish on the days they are not around and they remain committed to things they have stated they would be part of during that time. I didn’t do that and while I was enjoying my family and the sun in one of New Zealand’s wine lands, Napier, blissfully shunning access to email and other trappings of the internet, something I had been excited about taking part in came and went - it sailed on by with no thought from me and now that I am back in reality, I am feeling a little disappointed that I forgot and hadn’t given a thought to Blog Action Day 2008, which happened yesterday NZ time - October 15.
Posted on October 8, 2008 - by Frank
The Strength of Co-operatives
When discussing Fair Trade and the use of co-operatives as a healthy business model in developing areas, I often get asked what a co-operative (co-op) is. Allow me to give an explanation here for people who may not have grasped an understanding of this business model before, and allow to me to share why I think it is a strong model for developing areas.
Posted on October 7, 2008 - by Frank
Film Review - Shoah
Many of us have grown up hearing stories about the holocaust through school, television, film, books and museum trips. There is a sense where sometimes it feels too familiar; that the horror of the event is just another of those tales we hear of the past and thus the horror of the catastrophe of the second world war loses it’s human face – a face of darkness and suffering.
Shoah is a 9 hour catalogue of the humanity that lived and breathed during the holocaust. It gives us the face of the tragedy and introduces us to real people with real stories. Its method is pure and simple; interviews and location shots. There is no archival footage with images of countless broken people we will never remember. There are no images that so haunt the memories of humanity where we see rough black and white footage of starved, suffering people who have been subjected to the ravages of human oppression. How many of us forget the faces of those people because when shown that footage, there are so many? Shoah does not allow us that escape. It does not allow the blur of images past.
Posted on October 2, 2008 - by Frank
Bailout for Wall St? What About the Poorest?
WITH the meltdown of international banking and credit filling investors with dread, developed nations are using the crisis to legitimise backing away from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said TEAR Fund Executive Director Stephen Tollestrup.
The MDGs signed by 189 nations promised to halve poverty for the poorest of our planet’s people by 2015 and increase aid to 0.7 per cent of their countries GDPs.
“The truth is”, says, Mr Tollestrup, “the MDGs go well beyond a handout. If we dare to think outside of the square we will find that we need to see productive and growing economies in the developing world to help us move out of this current mess and bring long term economic stability.
Posted on October 1, 2008 - by Frank
Jesus Would Use Open Source
Ok, so maybe the title takes it a bit far, but I have no doubt that a good argument can be formed to show that Open Source is the ethical and more than suitable choice for any computer user in this day and age.
Last night, after flirting with the idea of shifting my computer operating system to an open source Linux system for years, I finally made the leap last night, wiping Microsoft Windows off the machine and loading Ubuntu on my laptop, with the resolve to never look back and to never pay for software again, but remain completely legal.
Posted on September 26, 2008 - by Frank
Human Trafficking - A Self Examination
There’s only one place to start with this issue after we’ve grasped some of the statistics and basic issues related to human trafficking. Before I go anywhere else, politics, economics, strategies of intervention etc, I need to examine myself and that examination needs to involve some “frank” analysis and honest admissions.
I am a hypocrite of the highest degree. I am the product of a privileged world and I have willingly engaged in the indulgences on offer in my world, often with little to no thought about how those indulgences came to be a part of my world. As my knowledge has grown about the state of the world, I’ve continued to enjoy the privileged life, knowingly living a life that I’m well aware is probably built on the backs of the poor. I ignore that voice that whispers to me to change the inner me, not just the outer me.
I walk a line in my efforts to support humanitarian work, between doing it because it makes me feel good and in so doing being able to placate some of the feeling of guilt, and doing it because I believe there is an intrinsic value in every single person on planet earth. I continually ask the question - how much of this is about making myself feel good and how much is about actually serving others in this world?
I don’t know if that is a tension I will always live with, but it is certainly one that I feel now.
Aside from the broken on my own doorstep - the homeless and the beggars that I walk past in the streets of the wonderful city I live in, Auckland, New Zealand - I have never come in contact with the poverty that gets talked of on this site, the poverty of the developing world. I do what I do at a distance, meaning well and hoping for the best, but ultimately, not really knowing what it is I am helping with - my life is comfortable. I don’t know how much of my approach is a romanticized, feel good ideal… and that bugs me.
Writing this, I get the sense that my self examination needs to start a step back from where I had anticipated. I had anticipated writing here about the products I enjoy, how I enjoy spending money and how I actually keep my eyes pretty much closed when indulging in the things I enjoy… about how I would sometimes much rather enjoy the bliss of ignorance. For I know that this, in some way, helps feed the issue of human trafficking.
It seems, my self examination needs to start a bit further back with my motivations for getting involved in humanitarianism like I do. Why do we care about these things? Do we care? Is it just a selfish exoneration of the lives we enjoy? Are we just trying to do our little bit simply so we can wash our hands of the matter and sleep better at night? How much does that love of our fellow human beings drive deep into our hearts? How much value do we really, honestly see and therefore invest in those who suffer in this world? What price am I willing to pay to serve them?
If I truly want to have an impact in the area of human trafficking, these are questions I need to answer and where I come up short, I need to allow myself to be changed.
Maybe this journey will be more encompassing of who I am than I thought it would. I can’t go on reading stories about children being trafficked and sexually exploited without more change within myself. I can’t go on shedding tears over the way people are used and abused without experiencing more transformation. If I don’t change, if my motivations aren’t right, then taking on board so much of the world’s evil will either make me numb or destroy me. If I really want to find ways to make a difference in this world that carry real meaning then I need to feel real hope. Real hope, not vain exoneration, needs to be the motivation.
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